Laurence Juber

For nearly 40 years, Laurence Juber has enjoyed a career as a performer, recording artist, composer and studio musician. Known best as lead guitarist in Paul McCartney’s band Wings, Juber won a "Best Rock Instrumental" Grammy for the song, "Rockestra." Laurence, best known to his fans as "LJ," has established himself as an artist in his own right and was recently voted Fingerstyle magazine’s ‘Guitarist Of The Year.’ Laurence has released ten instrumental acoustic guitar CDs that showcase his playing in a variety of trio, duo, and solo settings featuring his unique fingerstyle technique and extensive use of alternate tunings.

LJ tours extensively in support of these CDs with concert and clinic dates in the United States and Europe. He also enjoys continued success as a studio guitarist playing on scores for television shows ("Home Improvement," "Boy Meets World" and "7th Heaven"), films (the Academy Award-winning "Dirty Dancing," "Pocahontas," and "GoodWill Hunting"), and record albums (including Ringo Starr, Alan Parsons, Belinda Carlisle, The Monkees and Lou Rawls). He is a sought-after composer, with TV and movie scores, as well as stage musicals to his credit.

In honor of this respected, gifted and versatile fingerstyle guitarist, Martin Guitar is proud to introduce the Laurence Juber OMC-18VLJ Signature Edition guitar. Several design features were specified by Laurence to create his optimum performance Martin guitar.

The OMC-18VLJ is a standard series 14-fret full access Venetian cutaway customized with Martin’s "old style" elements. The soundboard is bookmatched from solid Adirondack red spruce with Martin’s 1/4" width scalloped "X" bracing, also crafted of Adirondack spruce to achieve optimum tone. The back and sides are constructed from solid genuine mahogany for a clear tonal response. The gloss-finished solid genuine mahogany modified V-shape neck is fitted with premium nickel-plated Waverly tuners with old style butterbean knobs. A solid, squared tapered headstock is fitted with a Brazilian rosewood headplate and graced with the old style Martin decal logo.

The African black ebony fingerboard is inlaid with Abalone pearl dots adorning the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets only, with side position dots at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and double at the 12th, 15th, and 17th frets. The top is tinted with aging toner, and the entire guitar (neck included) is lacquered and polished to a high gloss. In keeping with Laurence Juber’s wishes, the instrument is offered without a pickguard.

In order to maintain the purity and integrity of design, the fingerboard is free of any signature inlay. The edition will, however, bear an interior label that is numbered in sequence with edition total and personally signed by Laurence Juber and by Martin Chairman and CEO C. F. Martin IV.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each OMC-18VLJ guitar will benefit The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting instrumental music education nationwide by partnering with businesses, schools, and communities to provide new and refurbished musical instruments to qualified schools and individual students.

Orders for the OMC-18VLJ Laurence Juber Signature Edition will be accepted by Martin until March 18, 2002, though the guitars will not begin to appear in stores until the summer of 2002. After the ordering period closes, the size of the edition and the names of participating Martin dealers will be posted on the Martin website at www.martinguitar.com.